Jon Nalewajek

If MIT wasn’t already a totally awesome school (which it is), then it definitely is now. Faculty at MIT have now voted that any publications that they receive should and will be open access.

From Ars Technica:

If there were any doubt that open access publishing was setting off a bit of a power struggle, a decision made last week by the MIT faculty should put it to rest. Although most commercial academic publishers require that the authors of the works they publish sign all copyrights over to the journal, Congress recently mandated that all researchers funded by the National Institutes of Health retain the right to freely distribute their works one year after publication (several foundations have similar requirements). Since then, some publishers started fighting the trend, and a few members of Congress are reconsidering the mandate. Now, in a move that will undoubtedly redraw the battle lines, the faculty of MIT have unanimously voted to make any publications they produce open access.

It is no secret that I am a huge supporter of open source software. Furthermore, I am also a huge supporter of open access publications.

I have argued in the past, that I believe that there is no reason why research publications, which are the key to scientific progress, should be withheld from anyone (the “anyone” being the people that cannot afford to purchase memberships to various journals etc.). One argument against the Open Access policy is that the cost for publishers to maintain a website, host articles, paper costs, etc., would somehow need to be covered.

I think to a certain extent, this is true. Clearly, it will cost publishers money to do all of the things mentioned above. However, with all of the money the government spends on research, it at least seems plausible that they could give a grant to an organization that could host PDF versions of the papers, and offer them for free. Maybe we could even create some new jobs in this process. Maybe publishers could be given a certain amount of government funding for the more “open” that they are. Publishers could still charge whatever they want for physical copies of the paper, and even for the PDF’s if they so choose, but everyone would have access to this free site. (Note: I realize that a potential counter argument is that there could still be people out there that would not have access to the free PDF’s [people that cannot afford computers]. However, I think in this day and age, this argument becomes weaker and weaker now that more libraries offer free internet access. Further more, this counter argument seems like it would also go against proprietary publications.)

I think the biggest problem with my above argument is that it requires only the U.S. government to do something. Everyone should be accountable for providing free access to publications, not just the U.S. All nations should work together to provide open access for the sciences.

jonnale Open Source MIT, Open Access, research

I really like puzzles. Although I do enjoy board game puzzles, my favorite type of puzzles are ones that require extensive thinking and a clever and elegant solution. This is what really drew me to Computer Science. Applying data structures, algorithms, architecture, etc., and coming up with a high performing, elegant solution to a problem is challenging and exciting to me. Puzzles are also a reason I really like Philosophy.

On my algorithms midterm exam before Spring break, there was a question that I think represents why I truly enjoy studying Computer Science. Never in my life have I read a question on an exam and said to myself, “This question is awesome.” I am going to post a modified version of the question, and strongly encourage anyone to post their solution as a comment. I will post one possible solution on Friday.

A firm wants to determine the highest floor on its n-story building from which a device can fall with no impact on the device’s functionality. The firm has two identical gadgets that you can experiment with (each costs $1,000,000). You are allowed to break both gadgets,  but no extra gadgets will be provided. Design a brute force algorithm in the best efficiency class to solve this problem.

This is a very technical question, so in order to simplify it, do not worry about what “brute force” or “efficiency class” means if you have never taken an algorithms course. These are important concepts for solving this problem in a real life situation, but I do not want these topics to discourage discussion amongst non-CS readers. If you wish to leave a comment, simply write what you would do to solve this problem.

Example solution:

1. Drop gadget on first floor
2. If it breaks, gadget cannot be dropped from hight=current floor
3. If it does not break, go to next floor and Repeat.

Example in pseudocode:

DidItBreak(n)
//where n is the number of floors
for currentFloor<-1 to n do
  if result of device drop = broken
    return currentFloor-1
  else
    currentFloor <- currentFloor + 1
  return -1

jonnale Computer Science algorithms

!!!! Spoiler Alert !!!!

Dear writers of “Knowing”,

I just got back from watching your movie, and I am totally dumbfounded about what just happened.

The movie started off great. Actually, I was really surprised. Nicholas Cage played an Astrophysicist (I think?) professor at MIT, which is awesome. MIT is an incredible school, and the campus looks really cool. The topic Nicholas Cage was talking to his students about was the debate between Determinism and Randomness. Both MIT, and this debate are interesting to me, so needless to say, I was excited.

The majority of the movie was not bad. It was not great, but it was not bad. I did think Nicholas Cage figured out the pattern to the numbers a little too quickly, but after all, if he is playing a professor at MIT, you never know.

My biggest complaint is about the ending of the movie. It made NO sense! Why were there aliens in an icicle shaped space ship? Forget the spaceship, WHY were there aliens? The movie would have been much better if everyone had just died (or Nicholas Cage saved the day).

What I am really confused about is whether or not this movie is supposed to portray a Christian message. There were many Christian references: Nicholas Cage talking about heaven to his kid, the picture of Ezekiel, the Adam and Eve reference at the very end. However, what doesn’t make sense, again, is the aliens. If you were trying to send a Christian message, how do the aliens fit into the story? If anything, it shows that four aliens could be possible for our existence (if for some reason a solar flare was going to kill us all and we were picked up by an icicle shaped space ship and dropped on this planet).

If the point of this movie was supposed to answer the question about Determinism vs. Randomness, in favor of determinism, I think the entire alien part voids whatever message you were trying to get across. It was simply crazy.

I think you took a very interesting an idea, added some Christian symbolism, and then ruined the entire thing by adding aliens. I actually started laughing when I saw the spaceship. I said to myself, “This seriously cannot be happening.”

$22 dollars later (tickets for my girlfriend and I + pop corn + pop), I am disappointed, confused, and most importantly, curious as to why you would add aliens to this film.

Sincerely,

Jon

jonnale Rant